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THE LIF
E OF SANT’EFISIO
- The life of saints are always important, dramatic, characterized by difficult choices with deep meanings.So was the case of Saint Efisio and this is the legend which was and is history for the Sardinian people.
- Ephis lived in the III century AD and was a soldier of the Roman Empire in Jerusalem where he persecuted the Christians.
- He was sent to Sardinia to suppress the Christian Communities in the Island. While crossing the sea a miracle happened. Efisio saw a burning cross in the sky and considered it a sign from God and converted to Christianity. When he landed in Sardinia he was no longer a Roman soldier but a Christian soldier in his new faith.
- Ephis fought against the barbarians, the pagan cults, his fame grew and his life began to take on the aspects of a legend. Efisio was captured by the Romans and tortured in the same place where the church dedicated to him now stands in the quarter of Stampace in Cagliari.
- However there were no signs of torture on his body: he was thrown into a furnace but he did not die, since torture can do nothing against faith.
- Ephis’s fame grew and for the Sardinian people he was already a saint, but the Romans considered him dangerous and the Emperor Flavio ordered his decapitation, which took place in Nora in 305 AD.
- From that moment Efisio’s fame grew and spread throughout the Island: he became the patron saint of the Sardinian people and of Sardinia.